Orwell had it easy
when fixing 1984 as the crucial point.
What we are condemned to may be, after time itself has unfolded,
the disappearance of time in the instantaneousness of action.

That is the price of change.
In the exaltation of uninterrupted circulation and
incessant up-to-dateness,
societies lose the thread of their development.
It is just as with speed: acceleration leads to loss of direction.
The hysteria of change conceals the hysteresis of processes,
especially that of the historical process…

The meters measuring history have come to a standstill…
in the west a liberal society discomfited
by its own excess.

The ultimate configuration,
that of “postmodernism”
-a fetishism of picking out and adopting
all the significant little bits and pieces,
all the idols,
and the purist signs that preceded
this fetishism.

-excerpt The Anorexic Ruins by Jean Baudrillard, published 1989

Where do I start?  The author observes that Orwell’s “snapshot” commentary of our present, which was then his future, was easy when compared to the acceleration stimuli of our own era.  What is the effect of acceleration upon time?  Time disappears!  As change accelerates a sense of continuity is lost.  Everything seems to be instantaneous, as just another, one of many points-in-time.

The iphone comes to mind as an example.  There have been thirty four iterations of the iphone, one new phone after another, intended to drive the market, exacerbate desire for the newest edition…

Acceleration in a super-car forces one to peer intently toward the next turn, down the track.  Everything is lost, (time collapses) except what you must do, reflexively, to negotiate the rapidly approaching curve…

What does one do, when one lives very fast, and has too much of everything ?

Why one “looks back” picking and choosing and fetishizing elements from the past.

Bruce Springsteen has exquisitely made the point.  Here is his anthem, a requiem to our place and time in “history.”

Lost In The Flood by Bruce Springsteen.

Lost In The Flood

By Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

The ragamuffin gunner is returnin’ home like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone
“He must be from the fort,” he hears the high school girls say
This countryside’s burnin’ with wolfmen fairies dressed in drag for homicide
They hit and run, plead sanctuary, ‘neath the holy stone they hide
They’re breakin’ beams and crosses with a spastic’s reelin’ perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleadin’ immaculate conception
And everybody’s wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud

And I said, “Hey, gunner man, that’s quicksand
That’s quicksand that ain’t mud”
Have you thrown your senses to the war
Or did you lose them in the flood?

That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides her low on the hip, on the side he’s got Bound For Glory in red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racin’ stories, the kids call him Jimmy The Saint
Well that blaze and noise boy, he’s gunnin’ that bitch loaded to blastin’ point
He rides headfirst into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there’s nothin’ left but some blood where the body fell
That is, nothin’ left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman’s farewell

And I said, “Hey kid, you think that’s oil?
Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood”
I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm
Or was he just lost in the flood?

Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria, she’s puttin’ on me the stare
And Bronx’s best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five quick shots, the cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they’re shootin’ up the street
Whoa, that cat from the Bronx starts lettin’ loose, but he gets blown right off his feet
Oh, and some kid comes blastin’ round the corner, but a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish
Still breathing when I walked away

And somebody said, “Hey man, did you see that?
His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud”
I wonder what the dude was sayin’
Or was he just lost in the flood?
Well, hey man, did you see that?
Lord, those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were gettin’ into
Or were they all just lost in the flood?

Were they lost, oh, tell me, tell me, man
Were they lost?